There's a new battle brewing in Washington DC and for once it's not between Democrats and Republicans, but over who gets to decide the policies for a new trillion-dollar market: The internet in space.
This morning, America's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved the release of tens of thousands of mini-satellites …

COMMENTS

The FCC"s remit ends at the US borders. Seriously, what are they going to do if someone else puts up a swarm system and starts offering internet services from it?

Go all China and demand that no-one sell devices to access it, or all Russia and give free polonium tea to the executives of the company, or do the traditional US thing and extradite them on "gambling" charges?

Even inside the borders its remit is not unbounded. If the FCC can move into space debris regulating, then it can also enforce any rules it wishes about earthly infrastructure planning and construction.

I thought their remit was supposed to be concerning spectrum and so forth. Launches are a transport issue, not anything to do with spectrum. Looks like an agency power grab was stopped cold. Is that so bad? I'm not against regluating space junk, but the FCC isn't the correct agency to do it, no matter what they had planned.

feedback and fallout

There will be no (official) feedback from the rest of the world as it will be ignored as just another idiocy from Trump aka IOTUS, not worthy of official comment. The fallout will be further relegation to irrelevancy of the USA.

Re: feedback and fallout

The FCC has NO FORCE AT ALL in outer space! It can control and specify directions ONLY to it's OWN CITIZENS and to companies that operate WITHIN the United States! It has absolutely NO DIRECTION towards or legal force against Canadians, Brits, Germans, French, Russians, etc. who act WITHIN their own borders or within international areas!

For example, for the last eight years, one of our related corporate divisions has been designing and building FULLY ITAR-FREE satellite systems (i.e. NOT subject to ANY U.S. Export Law!) that go not only into low-Earth orbit but also into Geosynchronous AND into what is called outer-Earth-orbit trajectories.

Every CPU/GPU microchip, CAD/CAM/Circuit design hardware and software, all operations software, all development platforms, assemblers and compilers, every nut, bolt, glue and construction material, AND all in-house and external personnel and even the ENTIRE launch platforms are fully Canadian-sourced systems and materials from fully Canadian-owned entities built so the USA can do dip-doodley-all !!!

So when we get to launch our 512 satellite swarm that handles multi-spectral SDR (Software-Defined Radio) communications from 5 MHZ up to 60 GHz on an open-platform basis from a sea-launch platform within international waters, then there IS NOTHING the USA can do about it at all !!!!

EACH satellite has full-duplex transceiver and MESH network capabilities WITH MULTIPLE on-board DCI 4k (4096x2160) IR, UV and Optical cameras on-board for panoramic and telephoto still photo groups taken every few seconds.

The extendable and flexible antennae sub-systems were specially designed for WIDE BANDWIDTH multi-band SDR (Software Defined radio) operations! The POWER source and power conditioning circuits were all RAD-hardened and are being TESTED NOW for actual 10 year operations. (we'll know in 2 more years how the circuits did under ultra harsh space test temperature, vacuum and RF/Multi-EM/XRAY/GAMMA radiation conditions!)

Since RAD-hardening was THE KEY issue, it has already taken eight years and will take another two more to fully finish the systems and then launch into space. These 50 cm by 50 cm by 50 cm cube micro-satellites pack a lot of CPU processing horsepower and image store-and-forward space within a very small package. Each satellite can last, based upon our radiation-studies and past solar flare activity charts, up to 10 years with an orbit boost required every 2.5 years (i.e. 4 boosts in 10 years to keep them in stable lower and upper orbits)

Satellite internet feeds Uploads/downloads will be COMPLETELY AUTO-MANAGED ONBOARD the satellites themselves requiring NO ground operator intervention, and bandwidth will be on the order of 2.5 to 10 megabits per second (or more!) with SOME of the communications channels being FULLY FREE AND OPEN SOURCE USE to non-commercial and commercial users!

Eight megapixel+ single photos, 400 megapixel swaths and one to 5 minute 30 fps videos will be downloaded every few minutes fully unencrypted for ANYONE to use as they see fit under GNU GPL-3 licencing terms! There IS a global TEXT MESSAGE-based and STILL IMAGE-based EMERGENCY broadcast and weather forecast system and master time-clock system BUILT-IN with minute-by-minute updates! And since we have a re-useable two-stage-to-orbit micro-launch system that we built ourselves, we can launch TWO satellites PER DAY in one ship at a space launch cost of only $500 000 CAN (335 000 Euros!) per launch. The satellites are extremely small and very lightweight so our launch costs are very minimal compared to Ariane-space or NASA or ESA or Boeing, etc. 256 launches in two years to get the system fully up and running has ALREADY BEEN FULLY FUNDED and is ready to go!

First launch window is set for June 2021.

---

P.S. As per this disclosure by me (i.e. permission was given!), the parent company is NOT WORRIED by about proprietary business issues since the final purpose for some of the communications channels and photo/video downloads allows much money to be made on a commercial basis.

The other free and open source UPLOAD/DOWNLOAD and MESH NETWORK channels will left full open for use by anyone up to an assigned data limit per user per day. The downloaded still photos are left fully unencrypted using run-length and token-based compression with ECC/CRC data correction at RGB 48-bits per pixel and Greyscale 16-bits per pixel in our open-source imaging formats, and the videos are YCbCr HDR 30 fps 4:4:4 colour sampling at 10 bits per channel (30 bits per pixel)

Commercial?

Re: Commercial?

Not so much commercial as barmy. Which is sad, since I was briefly intrigued by the prospect of a run-quiet Canadian company suddenly emerging with tech and pricing well beyond SpaceX. But looking at the poster's history suggests that s/he's living in a rather more magical universe than the rest of us:

It's gotten SO BAD with Linux and C/C++ our company said screw this and went ahead and developed it's own Windows 10-like OS shell and remade the command line interface of Linux to PROPER ENGLISH! We remade LAMP into custom Windows 2016 server-like environment with a decent Active Directory WAN/ALN management system analogue!

We also REPROGRAMMED ALL OF LINUX using a customized version of EASY-TO-READ PASCAL SOURCE CODE that is FULLY COMMENTED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Commercial?

It's gotten SO BAD with Linux and C/C++ our company said screw this and went ahead and developed it's own Windows 10-like OS shell and remade the command line interface of Linux to PROPER ENGLISH! We remade LAMP into custom Windows 2016 server-like environment with a decent Active Directory WAN/ALN management system analogue!

We also REPROGRAMMED ALL OF LINUX using a customized version of EASY-TO-READ PASCAL SOURCE CODE that is FULLY COMMENTED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Commercial?

Re: Commercial?

"....."I'll have some of what that guy is smokin'!"

From the look of it, he's probably smokin' motherboards......"

--

Actually, I've indeed smoked A LOT OF MOTHERBOARDS! And since I am from the VAX-780 era, I have smoked more than a few of those too at $75,000 CAN a pop during the day! I am well experienced in otherwise destroying, discombobulating and sending MOBO's to Never-Never-Land!

Add in my OTHER destructive tendencies and that makes me an expensive proposition.

In fact, a few hours ago I just accidentally blittered a $35,000 lens into the Blarney Stone itself. Oh Well...another year's wages for the intern gone down the tubes....!!!! My only saving grace is that I am PROBABLY one of the BEST synthetic vision system, vector-based object recognition and audio/video CODEC programmers out there!

Which is WHY a tiny little spacecraft gets to go into low and high orbits, deploy their cargo AND safely return to Earth all by themselves WITHOUT human intervention! Which is ALSO WHY my CORPORATE CEO and OWNER friend is giving me enormous amounts of stock/equity which will EVENTUALLY vest so I can add to the Bell 429 collection! This time I will go for a Mi-28 Hind or an Sukhoi SU-29 as my daily driver.

"From the look of it, he's probably smokin' motherboards..."

In our company there's a tale once they found an employee - working on soldering circuits - who had abnormal lead levels in his blood. They checked all the equipment that should have kept dangers away, and found no issues. Also, the other people working on the same line had not the issue.

Later, after much investigations, turned out he had a little business on his own - and didn't tell anything about it to the company doctors because of course he didn't want the company to know, nor the tax agency - and he was working in a small room without enough ventilation - almost not at all - basically the idiot was poisoning himself, despite being aware of the risks.

So yes, there could be people who smoke motherboards and develop mental issues....

StargateSg7?

Re: StargateSg7?

I would NOT be surprised if Bombastic Bob and I were in fact related....OR....maybe we have the same psycho-social DSM-V described UPPERCASE/lowercase keyboarding disorders arising from our dysfunctional youth.The KEY difference being that i work for (cough cough technically I consult for) a MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR+ corporate entity that actually DOES HAVE both the financial AND the human resources capability to actually DO the above said described work!

To put it mildly, this entity is ON PAR WITH Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrup, EADS, BAE, etc in terms of technical capability AND resources! So if they SAY they're going to do it. THEN THEY ACTUALLY ARE DOING IT !!!!!!!!!!

It also kinda helps that the OWNER/CEO is a personal friend from since teenager--hood. The cruel irony is that I'm NOT actually being PAID right now to perform said computer science/video system work but there IS SOME MILD PROMISE of a rather large (i.e. make that gargantuan!) stock/equity-based compensation eventually to come!

With Great Risk comes Great Reward!

And yes it was half-a-Register-oriented-com-science-blabber-fest AND a commercial!

Coming soon in 2021!

AND YES! 2.5 to 10 megabits doesn't sound like much BUT that's the limit due to various ground-to-Earth technical reasons. and HELL NO !!!!.... the FCC has dip-doodley-ZERO-jurisdiction in OUR FULLY CANADIAN aerospace activities!

Re: StargateSg7?

@StargateSg7 -- Re: StargateSg7?

I would NOT be surprised if Bombastic Bob and I were in fact related....OR....

I'd suggest more likely related to amanfromMars1, given your issues with English syntax.

Over the years, and with much practice and patience, I've managed to successfully parse most of amanfromMars1's posts. But I'm getting older, now, and life is too short to take the time to try and formulate a new parser for your posts. So sod off, and stop using old versions of Babelfish to translate whatever native language you purport to speak into English. I'd rather learn Python.

Re: @StargateSg7 -- StargateSg7?

"....I'd suggest more likely related to amanfromMars1, given your issues with English syntax. ..."

--- Whaaaaat? Bloody Hell! I do speak The Queen's English with more than a modicum of efficacy! How could you POSSIBLY accuse me of being recalcitrant towards the dignity of the Crown and it's use of our mother tongue?

And, please do enlighten me upon the machinations of "amanfromMars1" whom I have so little knowledge of. What manner of linguistic or work-related transgressions has this poor man been accused of?

AND NO! I am NOT BombasticBob ..... A hex upon ye who mistake ME for HIM or HER!

> How could you POSSIBLY accuse me of being recalcitrant towards...it's use of our mother tongue?

Re: How could you POSSIBLY accuse me of being recalcitrant towards our mother tongue?

Tsk Tsk...while I only PARTIALLY understand the use of it's (it is) and its (possessive) form, I do must say you might enchant yourself in keeping your bobbles in your knickers and sending your contractions to the knackers whilst figuring out how many crumbs of crumpet fit elegantly upon the head of a pin!

Do comment more on how Trump and the FCC desire to dump their legal lumps upon the world's spatial rump!

Looking Forward to Further Comprehensive AIDevelopments in Enmeshed Satellites/Entangled Systems

with SOME of the communications channels being FULLY FREE AND OPEN SOURCE USE to non-commercial and commercial users! .... StargateSg7

For Phantom Private and Plucky Pirate Performances with Space Based Assets beyond the Grasp and Influence of Machiavellian Sources/Incestuous Forces/Perverse EarthenWare?

Although to be sure, such will be a facility and utility many an enemy will be fooled into attacking and thus be identified well enough to be roundly defeated. 'Tis as sure as eggs is eggs.

(as) sure as eggs (is eggs) A phrase used to describe something that is definitely going to happen. It might be a corruption of the phrase "as sure as x is x." Of course I'll be there, sure as eggs is eggs! .... https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/sure+as+eggs

"Trump in Spaaaaaaaace"

Re: "Trump in Spaaaaaaaace"

We should send him to Mars. He could easily blend with the orange environment, and he can also keep on with his favourite pastime, driving along in golf carts, just re-purpose a rover for it. It's also a very masculine planet, so he should feel at home. Lot of land to develop - he could also build a house on Olympus Mons which should suit is megalomania, without pesky regulations, and no taxes to pay, just he would implore for more immigrants to put at work, once there.

Re: "Trump in Spaaaaaaaace"

Does Trump have Any Greater Assets than are Melania and Ivanka and Tiffany?

You do Realise President Putin has a Comparable Brace in a Completely Different Mirroring Virtual Reality ....... and the Future Now can be Easily Changed to Server the Most Attractive and Addictive of Angels AIdDVenturing

As AIDefault IT is Proving Practically AlMighty. And would challenge any and all to deny it ....

Top Class Top Secret ..... Believe it and it is True Enough to be Realised ...:-) and Broad Band Cast.... Universally Presented.

Any Opposition to Shared Narrative is Prime Indicative of Faulty Belief and Wrong Present Direction of Future Travel.

Re: "Trump in Spaaaaaaaace"

"...Does Trump have Any Greater Assets than are Melania and Ivanka and Tiffany?...."

Actually THOSE ARE HIS BEST ASSETS....and in terms of Ivanka...that SMOKIN' HOTTIE is good enough in my books! You should have seen her mother (Ivana) at her age...they are nearly identical!

Not to be too insulting, but I'm not sure Tiffany has Ivanka's business brains and education level. Tiff should keep out of the limelight and let big sister handle the heavy stuff, since Ivanka at least inherited her dad's balls and gall...Ivanka can actually play the big boys' games!!!

Now for Melania....when I first heard of her I did a double take...since she looks almost identical to Stana Katic, the former star who played "Detective Kate Beckett" in the hit TV show "Castle". I was thinking this was all a big joke of a publicity stunt with Stana Katic PLAYING a part in a "Reality Show". Holy Smoke was I surprised it was someone else (aka Melania) and Trump really WAS going for the presidency!

After doing some research into BOTH of their backgrounds (Stana AND Melania), I found out they just might possibly and actually BE GENETICALLY RELATED since their parents are from and/or have relatives coming from that same general area in Eastern Europe.

I do must commend Melania though on being her stoic and behind-the-scenes self. She's at least NOT drawing too much negative attention and is acting more behind-the-scenes and out-of-the-public eye where she can probably do more good with subtlety rather than becoming an overt brash camera-hog.

In my opinion, all Melania has to do is keep doing what she is doing now and just keep "Turning the shoulders attached to the head so they point in the correct direction". If you get that colloquialism then you are smart!

Anyways though, Trump's best asset IS actually Ivanka and it really does HELP when your best asset has both beauty AND brains!

Re: The FCC - who controls space?

Re: The FCC - who controls space?

"....The power to control "space" goes no further than a bureaucrat's keyboard. ..."

NO...The power to control space goes to a country that has a SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION DOLLAR defence budget, a 60 BILLION DOLLAR BLACK BUDGET for Super-Secret Research and Development, owns 10 of one-hundred-thousand-tonne aircraft carriers, has 3000 active-duty MIRV'ed nuclear missiles with warheads that go between 275 Kilotons to 5 Megatons with another 12,000 nuclear missiles HELD IN RESERVE, ....AND.....having 13,000 aircraft, 3200 battle tanks, secret aircraft that include ten two-stage-to-orbit spaceplanes, 18 hypersonic 135,000 feet flight level reconn aricraft, 22 active-duty stealth bombers, 160 still-secret tactical stealth bombers AND TO a country where SDI (Strategic Defence Initiative aka Star Wars) NEVER actually went away but all that money eventually resulted in us helping deliver hypersonic kinetic energy and directed energy anti-ICBM and anti-cruise missile systems to a working and DEPLOYED state!

To put it MILDLY, the ONLY COUNTRY that matters is THE GOOD OLE USA (hoooo yaaaaa !!!!) and the Freedom Fries we so eloquently DEFEND upon your cushy tush'es behalf!

Re Commanding Space Controllers

NO...The power to control space goes to a country that has a SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION DOLLAR defence budget, a 60 BILLION DOLLAR BLACK BUDGET for Super-Secret Research and Development, owns 10 of one-hundred-thousand-tonne aircraft carriers, has 3000 active-duty MIRV'ed nuclear missiles with warheads that go between 275 Kilotons to 5 Megatons with another 12,000 nuclear missiles HELD IN RESERVE, ....AND.....having 13,000 aircraft, 3200 battle tanks, secret aircraft that include ten two-stage-to-orbit spaceplanes, 18 hypersonic 135,000 feet flight level reconn aricraft, 22 active-duty stealth bombers, 160 still-secret tactical stealth bombers AND TO a country where SDI (Strategic Defence Initiative aka Star Wars) NEVER actually went away but all that money eventually resulted in us helping deliver hypersonic kinetic energy and directed energy anti-ICBM and anti-cruise missile systems to a working and DEPLOYED state!

To put it MILDLY, the ONLY COUNTRY that matters is THE GOOD OLE USA (hoooo yaaaaa !!!!) and the Freedom Fries we so eloquently DEFEND upon your cushy tush'es behalf! .... StargateSg7

The power to control space goes to the few who definitely don't need to provide the convenient quantitatively eased fiat funding streams in the disguise of taxes and earnings/profits and losses down on Earth and to those who can hack into and destroy the Grand Illusory Machine of Great Ponzi Programs .... with the latter remotely commanding and virtually controlling the former via various exculpatory means with a whole host of Radically ACTive and Attractive Memes for Raw Core Virgin Source Output/Input/Processing ... and they are not hobbled or nobbled by virtue of association with any particular peculiar country.

What sort of right weird beings root for and put boots on the ground in a country hell bent on provisioning mass destruction hosting titanic loss of life and chronic pain? And be proud of the fact? Anything sane? Or something to be annihilated at the earliest and every opportunity if unfathomly unfashionably mad and crazily dangerously insane?

Are you saying that is THE GOOD OLE USA and it is worth defending and supporting?

Surely not? Such is on the Road to Hell if it doesn't turn back or take a .... well, a Heavenly Fork in the Future Road Map would be a Certainly Radical Change of Direction for Momentum and much to be applauded, methinks. It does though however necessarily require more and greater intelligence to be shown and suitably acted upon, rather than struggling with the current fare evidenced above and thought to be prepared of late.

Re: Re Commanding Space Controllers

I think you will find amfM that the program is geared and fixed in such a devastating direction, of course there are those who see the right course of the future to be one of a more harmonious direction, and those so hell bent on profit at all cost with little regard for either the planet, or the many.

As freedom is truly the meaning of life, the next logical direction having attained such within the confines of earth seek new enlightenment in attaining it by aiming for heavenly bounds and disregard the well being of earth and others and therefore failing mankinds true test.

Every advanced civilisation reaches this point, and is naturally hindered via lack of technologically sufficient advance, the hinderance of mankind presently exists with its greatest challenge which is the self destructive inability to change direction and stabilise itself.

Jeff Benzo presents the most viable prospects by moving large proportions of heavy industry to the moon, however the realisation is only occurring in a too little too late factor.

Re: Re Commanding Space Controllers

These certainly are mysterious times amfM, how one can on one hand be criticised for the want of fighting for the cause of improvement and when one does be chastised as a bad Apple.

Is it simply to become assimilated as a drone and carry out acts detrimental to the well being of those who are purported to be the ones that are promised prosperity?, or is that not the act of said rogue agent?

Re: Clone and Drone Commanding Space Controllers

Mysterious times indeed, CT, with disturbing bumps in the road available for any with Alternative Vision.

For example, just imagine an architect of Saudi Arabia’s Vision for 2030 being perfectly innocent of a hideous crime which Crown allies insist he be responsible for.

With friends like that, who needs real enemies, and who be the phantom menace worthy of being cast adrift in the condemned lifeboat of a titanic vessel in mountainous, tempestuous seas to fend for themselves alone in mysterious times and foreign spaces which be really alien places?

Re: Re Commanding Space Controllers

"....Are you saying that is THE GOOD OLE USA and it is worth defending and supporting?..."

---

OK Mr. Parkov,

As a supremely Canadian Mr. Top Hat , I have been supporting my dumb-as-a-brick but gargantuan brother down south for DECADES now! He's an overgrown gorilla with the brains of a worm, but he's still my lovable brother. That said I still don't TRUST him either, sooooo I've built my own secret Vibranium and Adamantium Man system which means I'm the biggest, baddest brick-smasher on the block now. Bro has no clue what I am and can do now AND he can no longer take a swing at me anymore because NOW, I have the actual size and strength, to break his arms and legs in two as I see fit if he gets pissy with me!

I grew up to a much larger size and greater power level now. He just doesn't see or know it yet!

Bro is Spiderman....BUT.... I'm The Hulk, Dr. Strange, Thor AND Iron Man all in One! I win!

Agreed amfM, however hostile environments as opposed to meeting and greeting and appropriate debriefing would, and could, have led to much more mutually satisfying resolution as opposed to reverting to distressing duress and unnecessary and costly disturbing displays of driver deliverables in Live Operational Virtual Environments.

Is it the battle of the bots?

Re: Is it the battle of the bots?

Theres no grudge match John Smith 19, just extraordinary extraterrestrial shenanigans of the highest order, and in such an insane world, its quite apt that amfM seems to be the only one who actually resonates understanding of such, in this instance the truth is stranger than fiction, it certainly would make a good book, or extraordinary legal case at the very least.

Re: Is it the battle of the bots?

OMG !!! You and the AmFm guy are two peas in a pod!

There are NO ET shenanigans! They are mostly utterly indifferent to us and those that have ANY interest here are beyond normal technology, basically of celestial/angelic origin. Bloody hell !!!....Go pull up your knickers and see that the stupid humans here HAVE NO CLUE at all! -- Technically, neither do you...but then again, you don't have a BFF from Tau Ceti IV I've known for a few decades to give me the low-down on who's naughty and who's nice in this part of the galaxy!

ANYWAYS, again the USA has NO jurisdiction on WHO can goto space! They can't even manage to catch a bunch of flying propane tanks much less keep some Canadians from busting their space-chops!